My New Years Resolution, Resist Rigidness and Black and White Thinking

Well it is the beginning of February and after much thought I have decided my new years resolution. Anyone that knows me expected to see a long list of resolutions or “goals” from me this year, as did I. There are many things that I want to do, experience and accomplish this year. However, this year I have just one major goal that I think will ultimately help me achieve more peace and balance in my life. Hopefully this one goal or change in perspective will bring me greater happiness and connectedness with everything and everyone around me.

My Goal is to resist rigid, which to me means, to resist black and white thinking, to embrace the grey, to not judge, and to avoid thinking of things as good or bad.

The very fact that I am able to write about a new years resolution in February is an exercise in resisting rigidness. Normally I would think that new years resolutions have to be decided at the very beginning of the year, and they would only be meaningful if I followed them perfectly, well not anymore. I still have nearly 11 months in this year and no excuse or exercise in self-defeating perfectionism is going to stop me from making my news years resolution now!

Anyone that has spent much time around me knows that I love Mondays, not in the fact that I have to go back to work, but in the fact that it is a new beginning, a new week. I also love the start of a new month, and the start of a new year. It has always been a chance to start over with some new rigid plan of things I plan to do or accomplish. Well, I am going to try and shift this thinking and make it less rigid. I am going to work on seeing everyday as a new beginning, everyday as a gift, everyday as an opportunity. So if I don’t work out Monday, who cares, Tuesday is a new day and a new beginning, not the following Monday, which is what I would normally think.

In resisting rigid I hope to be able to get closer to my actual feelings, I hope to achieve more closeness with those around me. I have recently realized that I have a tendency to either think something is good or bad, or to feel good or bad, but this is never truly the case. If I feel that I either need to feel good or bad, in most likeliness I am lying to myself on some level. I recently realized with the help of someone outside my own head, that it is ok to be both happy and sad, it is ok to see good and bad, as everything in life is a mixture, everything is grey! Feeling like we have to choose this or that can be so ingrained, but why? Why can it be so difficult to just see the positive AND negative in things and people without making a sum total judgment? I am not sure where this rigidness stems from, and I don’t necessarily care, as I just want to focus on the solution.

How I plan to resist rigidness:

• Pay attention to my Judgments. Hear myself talk and try to pick up on keywords such as great, good, bad, etc.
• Remind myself that it is OK to have mixed feelings about anything. If someone asks how I am dealing with a situation, realize that it is OK to have MANY feelings about it, I don’t have to be just sad, or just happy about it.
• Pay attention to excuses. If I tell myself I should “wait” for some perfect start time, next Monday, next year, next time I have more money, next time I have less work, etc, realize that it is just and excuse based in rigidness.
• Embrace the bumps and curves in the road as part of the adventure.
• Avoid expectations.
• Start everyday anew.